Love is a Dog from Hell Read Online Free PDF Page A

many single women in the world
    with one or two or three children
    and one wonders where the husbands
    have gone or where the lovers have
    gone
    leaving behind
    all those hands and eyes and feet
    and voices.
    as I pass through their homes
    I like opening cupboards and
    looking in
    or under the sink
    or in a closet—
    I expect to find the husband
    or lover and he’ll tell me:
    “hey, buddy, didn’t you notice her
    stretch-marks, she’s got stretch-marks
    and floppy tits and she eats
    onions all the time and farts…but
    I’m a handy man. I can fix things,
    I know how to use a turret-lathe and
    I make my own oil changes. I can shoot
    pool, bowl, and I can finish 5th or
    6th in any cross-country marathon
    anywhere. I’ve got a set of golf
    clubs, can shoot in the 80’s. I know
    where the clit is and what to do about
    it. I’ve got a cowboy hat with the brim
    turned straight up at the sides.
    I’m good with the lasso and the dukes
    and I know all the latest dance steps.”
 
    and I’ll say, “look, I was just leaving.”
    and I will leave before he can challenge me
    to arm-wrestling
    or tell a dirty joke
    or show me the dancing tattoo on his
    right bicep.
 
    but really
    all I find in the cupboards are
    coffee cups and large cracked brown plates
    and under the sink a stack of hardened
    rags, and in the closet—more coathangers
    than clothes, and it’s not until she shows
    me the photo album and the photos of him—
    nice enough like a shoehorn, or a cart in
    the supermarket whose wheels aren’t stuck—
    that the self-doubt leaves, and the
    pages turn and there’s one child on a
    swing wearing a red outfit and there’s
    the other one
    chasing a seagull in Santa Monica.
    and life becomes sad and not dangerous
    and therefore good enough:
    to have her bring you a cup of coffee in
    one of those coffee cups without him
    jumping out.

stolen
     
     
    I keep thinking it will be outside
    now
    waiting for me
    blue
    front bumper twisted
    Maltese cross hanging
    from the mirror.
    rubber floormat
    twisted under the pedals.
    20 m.p.g.
    good old TRV 491
    the faithful love of a man,
    the way I put her into second
    while taking a corner
    the way she could dig from a signal
    with any other around.
    the way we conquered large and
    small spaces
    rain
    sun
    smog
    hostility
    the crush of things.
 
    I came out of last Thursday night’s
    fights at the Olympic
    and my 1967 Volks was gone
    with another lover
    to another place.
 
    the fights had been good.
    I called a cab at a Standard station
    and sat eating a jelly doughnut
    with coffee in a cafe and
    waited,
    and I knew that if I found
    the man who stole her
    I would kill him.
 
    the cab came. I waved to the
    driver, paid for the coffee and
    doughnut, got out into the night,
    got in, and told him, “Hollywood
    and Western,” and that particular
    night was just about over.

the meek have inherited
     
     
    if I suffer at this
    typewriter
    think how I’d feel
    among the lettuce-pickers
    of Salinas?
 
    I think of the men
    I’ve known in
    factories
    with no way to
    get out—
    choking while living
    choking while laughing
    at Bob Hope or Lucille
    Ball while
    2 or 3 children beat
    tennis balls against
    the walls.
 
    some suicides are never
    recorded.

the insane always loved me
     
     
    and the subnormal.
    all through grammar school
    junior high
    high school
    junior college
    the unwanted would attach
    themselves to
    me.
    guys with one arm
    guys with twitches
    guys with speech defects
    guys with white film
    over one eye,
    cowards
    misanthropes
    killers
    peep-freaks
    and thieves.
    and all through the
    factories and on the
    bum
    I always drew the
    unwanted. they found me
    right off and attached
    themselves. they
    still do.
    in this neighborhood now
    there’s one who’s
    found me.
    he pushes around a
    shopping cart
    filled with trash:
    broken canes, shoelaces,
    empty potato chip bags,
    milk cartons, newspapers, penholders…
    “hey, buddy, how ya doin’?”
    I stop and we talk